Category Archives: My Cooking

What I ate Friday and Saturday….I’m old.

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So I don’t know what it is lately but my inhibitions have been flying out the window.  I’ve been hanging out at the bar after work with co-workers, having a few drinks and dancing.  Yes, dancing.  A couple of lessons I’ve learned.  When you have a stomach bug you shouldn’t have three drinks the day after your recovery because no matter how early you go to sleep you’ll still feel like crap the next morning.  Next, you should just let yourself go and have fun!  We were dancing to Michael Jackson and people were trying to do the moonwalk, my friend who was bar tending said ‘wait, Ron can do it!’  I took my shoes off, did my best moon walk, I took two break dancing classes when I was like seven, and they all cheered.  Of course then someone else got up and did it and blew me out of the water.  But that one moment of cheering made me feel like a  thousand bucks.  It was probably just one person clapping but whatever!  This all happened Friday night and even though I was in bed by midnight I still couldn’t sleep and was exhausted the next day!

My stomach is much better but still slightly wonky.  I’m still eating pretzels, boiled chicken, chicken soup etc. Yesterday I did make a macaroni and veggie salad with a little balsamic!  Today I’m going to lunch with a friend so we’ll see what happens there!  Make it a great day everyone!

What I ate Monday

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Today was one of those days that I just didn’t want to get out of bed. For a change, it wasn’t because I drank too much the night before. I’m beginning to realize that I might be starting to sound like Chelsea Handler in these posts. I don’t drink every night, do I?

Yesterday was supposed to be a day off but I spent a few hours at my desk at home working on work stuff. I’ve had a horrible time concentrating and just sitting at my desk here with no stimuli seemed to help. I plan on doing the same thing today. My goal today is to work, drink juice (only juice) and then I might be doing an interview on a friends web show. I’ll let you know as soon as it is up.

Yesterday, even though I had a craving for pizza I decided I would eat the food that I had purchased the other day at the grocery store. I spent $100 at the store on Friday and all I want is pizza! So I made a turkey burger and a salad for lunch. I find that if you put a little honey mustard on top of a burger it doesn’t even need a bun.

For dinner I made a sausage, onions, peppers sauté with some barley. I boiled the barley and sautéed everything including garlic and put it in a bowl. I felt like I wanted the starch and I’m loving barley lately for some reason. I used a sweet Italian chicken sausage I found at the grocery store.

Did any of you watch the new show SMASH? I loved it. It made me long to live and work in New York again! What did you think?

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To recipe or not to recipe, that is the question……

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I just finished cooking for a workshop of hungry actor’s who were training at a month long intensive in Shakespeare.  Sunday night, as I was sitting at the bar soaking in the end of our time together, I was approached by one of the participants who said “I find it fascinating that you didn’t use any recipes during the workshop.”  I’ll tell all my blog readers a secret.  I don’t believe in recipes.  It’s not that I don’t believe in them but I have the voice of many culinary instructors in the back of my mind saying “A recipe is just a guideline.”

Truly, a recipe is a guideline or a map, if you will.  I will often google a recipe to get a basis for how I want to make something and then make it my own.  When you see recipe’s on this website that’s mainly for your benefit.  Often, when testing a recipe for you all, I have to stop what I’m doing, write it down and it makes the process much longer.  Working without recipes and creating something by tasting it and changing it is what creates the magic that I love in the kitchen.

That being said baking is completely different.  When you make you have to use a recipe because the measurements are so precise.  So in this new year I urge you all to be a little more free with your cooking.  Add something sweet to a salty recipe.  Find something in the fridge that needs to be used up and create a recipe around it.  Cooking can be as much fun or as much of a chore as you want.

Almost back……

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Well hello there! It’s been awhile hasn’t it? I have four more days of the workshop I’ve been cooking for and then I’ll be back to this website. I’ve got lots of things to chat about. I’m really going to try to make some more positive steps in the health department.

I have to say, besides the utter exhaustion, this workshop experience
has been tremendous. I’ve cooked a lot of great food with a staff that, while they didn’t have a lot of cooking experience, worked harder than any group I’ve ever had. And there was absolutely no fighting, no drama and no stress related to them.

This is currently day number 26 without a day off so I’m looking forward to some down time to take better care of myself. I’m attaching a few random pictures for your enjoyment of things that I’m sure I’ll be writing about soon!

Be well!

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Belgian Waffle with Peanut Butter

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Tuesday is the off day at work, for the workshop I’m currently cooking for. That means that I serve a
brunch instead of the normal lunch. People think it’s simple but actually it can be more difficult because it starts a lot earlier than the typical lunch.

I digress, again. Last year I bought a fancy two waffle at the same time maker for a valentines day brunch I was catering. I like to make use of it as much as I can. So typically we
serve waffles on Tuesday, today was no exception.

At the end of the meal today my sous chef went to make himself a waffle and told me that he likes to put peanut butter on his waffle. I laughed him off. Then immediately made myself a waffle and tried it. It was mind altering. It tasted like a Reese pieces candy. My all time favorite candy in the world. Of course, I felt like crap afterwards but it was worth it! I recommend you give it a try! Two more weeks to go and I’ll have more time to blog, record videos etc.

Be well everyone!

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